Please give me the support of your vote.
*
A Boston undercover cop threatens his wife for leaving him.
With him dressed and masquerading as a Boston police officer, I thought he was one of the good guys. It took me a while to figure out that it was me who put my expectations on him. In the way he played me, a professional player, he was just playing another role. With him having played so many roles, I don't think even he knew who he was. Most times, even when he was there physically, he wasn't there emotionally. Most times with him lost in his thoughts, there was no one home.
With him just playing another role while assuming yet another identity, this time the identity was as my husband, my friend, and my lover. Not much of a husband or a friend, he was a good lover. Two out of three isn't bad but I wanted more. I wanted everything. I wanted love. In the words of the late, great Freddie Mercury, "I wanted it all."
Callous and calculating, he was a cold blooded killer. With him leading a double life, and for him not to be exposed for the lunatic he was, he had to keep his emotions in check. When he was an Army Ranger, the best of the best and better than all the rest, he saw some stuff in combat and did some stuff when on reconnaissance patrol. Had he not been seriously wounded and nearly brought home in a body bag, his dream was to stay in country.
His dream wasn't to be a war hero. His dream was to be a Delta Force soldier. Earning ten times what a top non-com soldier earns, in the way he loved his guns, assembling them and reassembling them, his dream was always to be combat ready as a mercenary soldier. He could shoot the eye out of a squirrel at a hundred yards with his service revolver and he never missed his target with his rifle or scoped, long gun.
Had he realized his Delta Force dream, he never would have met and married me. Had he stayed in the Middle East, he never would have become a Boston Cop. Had he stayed in the Middle East, with him speaking half a dozen languages fluently, he never would have come home. No doubt, eventually making a careless mistake or taking a tragic misstep, he'd be buried in some unmarked grave in the desert of Iraq, Pakistan, or Afghanistan. Sticking to their motto of leaving no one behind, maybe his buddies would have brought what was left of him home for his parents to bury.
Seemingly, with him having a long list of victims in his wake and in the way of a gunfighter in the Wild West of old, as if he was living life large in Deadwood, he enjoyed killing people. He didn't talk about killing someone and never bragged about taking a life, he just did it without remorse and without feeling. Had he not told me some of what he's done when he was drunk one night, I never would have known how much of a bad man he was. A real eye opener, I could only imagine the things he didn't tell me. Yet, in a moment of insight, when he confessed his crimes to me and with him telling me too much, the type of man who leaves no witnesses behind and no loose ends, it was then that I feared for my life.
Whether killing enemies of our government as an Army Ranger, playing a role as a CIA operative, doing dirty things undercover for the Boston Police, or doing a favor for the mob, it was an easy transition for him to change his hat and go from one character to another. With him always having money, I always wondered where he got his money but, after growing up with my four criminal brothers, I knew enough not to ask questions. Only, with him being a cop and with him being such a bad man, turning himself in, he should have started by arresting himself.
With him doing bad stuff now as a police officer when he was paid to arrest the bad guys, the crimes he committed could have sent him to jail for life. With him so black and white, I always wondered how he justified what he did and reconciled with all that he's done. Perhaps, if he had a conscience, he'd feel guilt and remorse but he didn't feel anything that didn't have directly do with him. Difficult for me to admit it at the time but he was a psychopath.
He was very hard to read. In addition to him being my husband, my ex-husband now, he was a very dangerous man. An ex mixed martial arts combatant, an MMA, fighter, a third degree black belt in Judo, an expert at getting information by torture, he knew a thousand ways to hurt someone and a hundred ways to kill someone. With him earning his gold shield as a Boston Police Detective and with him privy to everything illegal, especially the evidence holding cell, he knew how to get away with murder. Knowing how to frame someone else for the crimes he committed, with no one even suspecting him, he always had an alibi.
He was on the job. He was working. At the time of the crime, armed with a dozen witnesses, he was with his fellow, brother, police officers. The perfect alibi, he was in a police bar having a beer. He was with men and women who would swear to anything in a court of law for the protection of one of their own.
* * * * *
It was during the Red Sox parade that snaked its way from Fenway Park and through the Back Bay of Boston. The duck boats made their way downtown and ended up across from City Hall, at the Government Center Plaza. Within walking distance of Faneuil Hall, the duck boats continued to the Charles River to take their customary, cold water plunge by the Long Fellow Bridge that overlooked the esplanade, the Hatch Memorial Shell and the Arthur Fielder Bridge. The Red Sox had finally won the World Series in 2004, seemingly such a very long time ago.
With me finally riding high to only slide down so very low, I can't believe it's been ten years since my downslide of a life started after meeting him. As if my life hadn't been bad enough, meeting him was my forsaken curse. Done with men for a while, I had no intention of meeting a man. I had no intention of starting another go nowhere, one sided relationship. Not wanting to be just another fuck buddy, I had no intention of falling in love. Just as shit happens, falling in love just happened to me on that auspicious, fateful day.
Self-sufficient in my career as an accountant, I didn't need another self-indulgent, self-centered, and controlling man to support me. Able to take care of myself, I didn't need a man to take care of me, especially after all of the emotional and sexual abuse I suffered at the hands of men who supposedly loved me. I was happy living my life alone while occasionally dating. Yet, cursed to meet Robert and fated to marry him, I wish he had realized his dream in becoming a mercenary soldier.
In hindsight, knowing what I know now about him, I wish I had never met him. I wish I had never married him. If only I could go back in time and change that fateful day, I would have called in sick and stayed home. I should have watched the Red Sox parade on TV instead of being there in person.
I wish I hadn't worn shoes with heels that fateful day. I wish I had worn flats. I wish I had stayed inside my office on Newbury Street to watch the parade go by from my office window instead of going out to celebrate with the crowd of well-wishers. Only, this was my beloved Boston Red Sox, starring Kurt Schilling, Pedro Martinez, David Lowe, Tim Wakefield, David Ortiz, Jason Varitex, Nomar Garciaparra, Johnny Damon, Kevin Miller, and Manny Ramirez. Terry Francona, the coach of the Red Sox, defeated Tony La Russa, the coach of the St. Louis Cardinals to win the World Series.
"They won! I can't believe they won!"
Every bar and tavern was crowded shoulder to shoulder with people who wanted to celebrate their victory. Spilling out into the streets, a happy mob, it wasn't a violent mob. A very special day for Bostonians, New Englanders, Rem Dog members, the Red Sox Nation, and Boston Red Sox fans, this wasn't just any World Series, this was the 100th World Series of major league baseball. Unbeknownst to me that this would happen again in 2007 and again in 2013, with me thinking that this was a once in a lifetime occasion, I needed to be outside on Newbury Street to cheer my team with the rest of Boston. After eighty-six years in the making, I needed to wave and cheer my joyful happiness that was filled with pride for the Boston Red Sox.
"Hooray! Hooray!"
Now in hindsight, with me going from high to low, what have I done with my life in ten years? Actually, maybe not all what I wanted to do but I've done a lot with my life in ten years. The highlight of many couples is getting married, having children, and staying married, until death do they part. Yet, as quickly as I got married, realizing that I made a bad mistake, I got divorced.
With my life quickly becoming a soap opera melodrama and a television mini-series, when I filed for divorce, I moved out and took my own apartment. Only, it was at a time when the economy hit rock bottom in 2007. No longer having a safety net, it wasn't as easy to be on my own as it was before the economy soured. Back then, I could find another job, a better job, within a week or two.
After losing my job due to budget constraints and being unable to afford my rent, I stayed with a girlfriend while working as a waitress at an upscale restaurant. Then, when she got married, with me having nowhere else to go, I moved from my beloved Boston to Pennsylvania to live with my mother. I dreaded living with my mother after all that she's done to me but with me promising not to kill her in her sleep, we reconciled somewhat. With my four, much older brothers living out in Ohio and Michigan with their families, I had no other place to go. Besides, I wasn't even talking to them never mind wanting to live with him.
After being born and raised in Boston and living there all of my life, when I moved to Pennsylvania, I may as well as moved to a foreign country. With nothing familiar and recognizable, I didn't know where the Hell I was. Surrounded by funny looking men dressed in black with long beards and big brimmed hats, I didn't understand why so many women, who didn't wear makeup, dressed the same as all the other women. Wearing with long, plain dresses and strange little hats, they spoke a peculiar language that sounded a little like German. A place where the Amish and Mennonites converged, strangely enough, living in Pennsylvania and within a Mennonite community was the first time I not only felt save but also was happy.
My happiness was short-lived however. On September 11, 2011, ten years to the day of the bombing attack of the Twin Towers, with me living across from the picturesque Susquehanna River with my mother, we were flooded out of our basement apartment. With the river cresting 30' over flood stage level, there was water higher than the second floor. Because we weren't allowed to return to our apartment until the water receded and until the buildings were inspected and deemed safe, by the time we returned three weeks later, everything was ruined. Submerged in a soup of home heating oil, raw sewage, and mold, we lost everything. Nothing was salvageable. The Red Cross gave us food, clothes, and temporary shelter.
True to her nature, my mother a tall, busty, good looking woman who looks ten years younger than her age, immediately hooked up with a man and moved in with him within a couple of weeks. Instead of staying homeless and staying with me, she abandoned me for him. What else is new with her? That's just the way she was. With her always preferring the company of a man over her daughter, she likes men, especially a man who could take care of her.
